Swath sensors (such as sidescan sonar, bathymetry sonar, camera, etc.) have a ‘swath width’ that is a function of the angular sector of the sensor and the distance to the surface being observed. Sidescan sonar is an acoustic system that can image the seafloor. Sidescan sonar sensor data can be made available in at least one standard format, Unified Sonar Image Processing System (UNISIPS). Often these sensors are moved along at a nearly constant height above the surface that is being observed and at a nearly uniform speed. The resulting data forms ‘swaths’ over the surface being observed that is nominally constant in width. When multiple passes are made with the sensor over the same geographic areas overlap occurs between the swaths created at different times. A sufficient overlap is desirable to examine features being observed from different orientations of the sensor and/or at different times. The swath sensor data sets are typically very large and processing (manually or automatically) can require extensive resources. The effort can be reduced significantly by eliminating those areas without sufficient overlap.
The existing tools for looking through sidescan sonar data include the ability to scroll through the data sequentially, a process that can take longer than the data collection process itself. Simple graphical methods to determine the overlap between polygons do not address the unique issue of ‘sufficient’ overlap to properly cull areas that can be ignored.